It made a nice ceremony with a good crescendo effect. It would have been nicer if we could all have swung out right then and there, but of course there were the war carts. The men marched out to them, and the first few hundred were already on the tracks, but it was almost noon before the last cart went out the gate. Not that the departure was disorganized, far from it. We were double-tracked and the men moved out at a quick march, but it takes time for thirty-six hundred big carts to move down a pair of tracks. The column was sixteen miles long.
Yet once moving, they didn't stop. Early on, we had found that eighteen armored men could easily tow a war cart filled with their arms and supplies, and with the rest of the platoon riding on it, so long as it was a railroad track. A cook stove was slung from the back of the cart, and three cooks could keep the men fed. There was room for the other half of the platoon to sack out on top of the cart or to be slung from hammocks below it. Working three hours marching and three hours resting, they could go on indefinitely, making six dozen miles a day without ever breaking into double-time. Most caravans were happy to do two dozen miles, and few conventional military columns could do that! Actually, providing we could stay on the rails, we could probably outrun the Mongols. Providing.
I sat on Anna, watching them go out the gate. There was a big crowd outside cheering them on, dependents and refugees who were waiting to move into Hell as we left. Odds were that they were cheering more because we had vacated the premises than because we were going out against the enemy. Some of those people had been out there in the snow for days.
But there were others whose job it was to worry about those left behind. My job was with the riverboats. I was about to leave for it when a strange company of troops came up. I say strange because they were out of uniform. They had turbans wrapped around their helmets. Then I spotted Zoltan sitting on one of the carts. I went up to him and rode by his side.
"Zoltan, what the hell are you doing here?"
"Doing. sir? Why, I am riding off to war against my ancient enemies, the Mongols! We have many old scores to settle with them as you would say. And you must not call me Zoltan, sir. Not here. Now I am Captain Varanian of the two-tendy-eighth."
"But I never said that you could join the army! This is a Christian army!"
"True, my lord, but you never said that we couldn't, either. As to the Christians, we are not prejudiced, and we keep to our own company in any event."
"There's a whole company of you? How is that possible? Eight years ago there were only fifty men in your band, and no children. How can there be two hundred fifty of you now?"
"Oh, the word spread of your generosity and our security under your protection, my lord. Others of my people who were scattered over the world came to us in ones and twos and what could we do? Could we send them back to the cold and cruel world? So we took them in, even as you took us in. And now they repay you, with their lives, perhaps."
"I thought that there were only a hundred families of you."
"From Urgench yes, my lord. But there were many other cities in Khareshmia that is no more. Is it not enough that we join you in this Holy War?"
"Yes, I suppose it is, Captain. Carry on." I just hoped the Church never got wind of it.
The last company in line were specialists in cart repair, set up to get stragglers back on the road. Once they went by, Anna and I rode the trail beside the track and the men cheered us the whole way. I smiled and waved at them until my arm got sore, then switched arms. Good. Morale couldn't be better.
Halfway to East Gate, we passed the first of them, and Anna went over to the track. She said it was easier to run on the wood than on the ground. Springier.
I got there to find the RB1 Muddling Through just rounding the bend with the RB14 Hotspur right beyond her. There were also three companies of troops waiting to board them. They hadn't heard about the loss of the RB23 The Pride of Bytom, so I told the captain of the company that had been assigned to it that he would have to join up with the regular army. His boat fide was gone.
I turned to Anna.
"Well, girl, this is where we part company for a while."
She gave me an "I don't like this" posture.
"Now don't start that again! We talked this over weeks ago. There wouldn't be anything you could do on a boat but take up space. Baron Vladimir needs your help. You like Vladimir, don't you?"
She nodded YES, but sulkily.
"I know you don't want to leave me. I don't want to leave you either, but this is the sensible thing to do. Look, give me a hug."
I hugged her neck, her chin pressed firmly to my back.
"Anna, you know I've loved you since we first met. You've always been my best friend, and no matter what happens, you always will be."
She signaled "ME TOO." I felt a tear forming.
"Good. Now be off with you, love, and take good care of Vladimir! I love you!"
She galloped back west.
Captainette Lubinski, the woman commanding East Gate, came out to report to me.
"We have over twenty thousand people in there, sir. I tell you that they're stacked up to the stone rafters! We can't possibly take any more!"
"Then don't," I said. "There's plenty of room in Hell. Send all the newcomers there."
"But everybody wants to be in here!" she said. "They've all heard that this fort is invincible."
"It just might be. But there is a limit as to how many people it can hold. You'll just have to shut your gates and tell them to walk another day to Hell. It's the only thing you can do! Oh, give them some food and water, of course, but send them on their way!"
"Yes, sir, but some of them-"
"But nothing, Captainette! It's not what they want that counts! It's what we can possibly do! You have your orders. Dismissed."
She was crumbling already, and the battle hadn't even started. I wondered if I should replace her, but I didn't know any of the other women here well enough to pick her replacement. Maybe she'd be all right.
The boats pulled up to the dock and their front drawbridges went down. They must have been carrying a thousand refugees each.
"Send those people on their way to the Warrior's School!" I shouted to the troops standing around. "There's no room for them here!"
Baron Piotr had gotten there before me, and he had his crew organized. He was to run Tartar Control, our command and control center, acting as my chief of staff. He only had two dozen radio operators and clerks under him, but in fact he would be running the Battle for the Vistula-under my occasional direction, of course.
The RB1 Muddling Through was a command boat, the only one we had. It had six radios instead of the usual one, so we could cover all the frequencies that we used without retuning. It had an operations center with a big situation map, plus bedroom space for all the extra people. Aside from that, it was just another steamboat.
It was late afternoon by the time the boats had taken on more coal and supplies, loaded the troops, and headed downstream. As we left, two other boats were coming up to replenish their coal. I gave their masters a chewing out over the radio for being so bunched up.
RB1 EG TO RB18 EG AND RB26 EG. WHAT ARE YOU?
TWO WOMEN WHO MUST HOLD HANDS ON THE WAY TO
THE POTTY? THE NEXT TIME I SEE YOU SO CLOSE TO
GETHER, I WILL PERSONALLY DRESS BOTH OF YOUR
BOAT'S MASTERS IN BUNNY SUITS! CONRAD. OUT.
Our range being as short as it was, the rules were that any boat between the sender and the receiver should relay the message onward. In this case, where all units concerned were at the same location, it shouldn't have been relayed at all, but the substance of the message was such that I knew the radio operators would send it the full length of the line, which is what I wanted.
Doctrine was that the boats should be evenly spaced.
We had three-gross miles of river to patrol, upstream and down, with three dozen boats. They should have been two dozen miles apart!